Darlene Graham - An Accidental Family

Despite the light of a full moon and the fact that Rainey assured him she had been here many times, they missed the turn. Seth was forced to switch on the deer lights mounted high on the cab of his Silverado pickup. He’d been driving with only the fog lights out on the highway, and for good reason. Anyone sitting up on a ridge with a set of high-powered binoculars could spot headlights after they left the main road. When Rainey found the turnout on the second pass, Seth slammed on his brakes, turned, and they bumped onto a narrow gravel path that veered sharply upward in the dense underbrush.

“I warned you, it’s bad,” Rainey said.

“Cool!” Dillon shouted from the rear seat of Seth’s double cab pickup.

The boys were crammed shoulder to shoulder, with Aaron and Maddy, predictably silent, looking increasingly anxious. But Dillon was acting loud and boastful enough to make up for the other two.

“I wish I could drive this road,” he shouted in Seth’s ear. Seth knew the boy was masking some serious anxiety.

“I wish you could, too,” he replied dryly as the pickup bucked up the steep, rocky path. He switched off the high beams.

“Are you crazy?” Rainey clutched the darkened dash as if she could hold them onto the side of the mountain that way. “This trail skirts a hundred-foot dropoff!”

Even by moonlight, Seth could make out the grim downturn of her delicate mouth.

“Unfortunately, the Slaughters know every high point for miles. They could be watching for us right now. You can spot headlights from quite a distance out here. It wouldn’t take them long to pin down our location. They know the roads out here as well as I do.”

“Well, you didn’t know about this particular road,” Rainey challenged.

“This doesn’t exactly qualify as a—”

“Road.” Dillon finished Seth’s sentence as the truck jostled over a sizable slab of buried sandstone. “This is more like a roller coaster!” The boy leaned forward in the seat like a kid on a carnival ride.

“It would be stupid to lead the Slaughters right to us.” Seth glanced at Rainey and downshifted. “No headlights.”

“I hope you know—ugh!—” Rainey clutched the dash tighter as the pickup bounced down off the slab of rock “—what you’re doing.”

He hoped so, too. He hoped he was doing the right thing by these vulnerable boys and this delicate woman. He flicked a glance at her, then concentrated on his driving. Rainey Chapman was way, way different from the women he was used to.

The pickup jolted over another mound of rock. “Yee-haw!” Dillon yelled. “Ride ’em, cowboy!”

“Dillon,” Rainey snapped. “Be quiet. Officer Whitman is driving.”

The boy sat back in a pout, but when the truck bucked again, his cracking young voice erupted, high with excitement. “I’m tellin’ ya, Sheriff! I could handle this dude!”

Seth glanced in the rearview mirror and could see that the boy’s bravado was phony as a three-dollar bill. The other two looked plainly terrified.

Dillon’s expression became defiant when he caught Seth studying him in the mirror. “I can handle a stick shift good as anybody.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Seth downshifted as the tires skidded and ground in the rocky ruts. “But right at the moment—” he shifted one more time “— I’d appreciate it if you’d settle down, pardner.” Dillon answered with a resentful squint.

Seth turned his attention back to the treacherous road. “How long does this go on?” he asked Rainey.

“Eight miles.”

The place was beyond remote. When they started to climb the narrow track of Granny Grace’s rocky drive, Seth spotted the profile of a tiny log cottage tucked high up in the trees. Perched on stilts at the peak of a sheer rocky incline that looked out over a valley, the structure appeared to list to one side, looking like some long-forgotten fairy cottage punctuated by several sagging, steep-pitched gables. All of the tall windows were dark.

“We aren’t gonna stay here, are we?” Dillon grumbled. “This place looks creepy.”

“’Fraid so,” Seth said dryly. “For now this is home sweet home.”

“Home sweet home,” Dillon echoed sarcastically, as he signed something presumably derogatory to Maddy.

A cacophony of barking broke out as they pulled into the gravel clearing and up to a rickety-looking wooden staircase that rose to the dark house. Before Seth had even braked to a stop a couple of mixed mutts came barreling out from under the stilts.

A light winked on inside the house, followed by a weak bulb flicking awake next to the door on the screened-in front porch.

Seth leaned forward to peer up through the windshield. “So. You want to go up alone and explain things first?”

“No. You guys can come on, but stay behind me. Those stairs can be tricky in spots.”

“I hate dogs,” Dillon shouted above the barking. “If one of ’em comes near me, I’ll kick his teeth in, I swear.”

“You will do no such thing. The dogs know me,” Rainey explained. “They’ll be fine as long as you behave yourself.”

The animals had charged the pickup, scratching at Seth’s shiny door handles. “Whoa, now,” he said.

Rainey rolled down the window and shouted, “Quiet!” When the dogs quieted and touched paws to the ground, she turned to the boys. “These dogs aren’t vicious.” She got out and threw the passenger seat forward and signaled for the two mute boys to get out of the back seat. “You, Dillon, will be nice to my gran and to her dogs.”

“Or what?” The boy slumped in the seat defiantly.

“Or you’ll answer to me.” Seth had come around the rear of the truck. “Come on now.”

“Who’s out there?” a reedy female voice called.

Rainey turned, leaving the door ajar. She stepped into the ray of the fog beams. “It’s me, Gran.”

“Rainey? Honey? Is that really you?”

“Yes, Gran. It’s really me.”

“Lord Almighty, child. I sure wasn’t expecting you in the middle of the night.”

“I know, Gran. I’m sorry for just showing up this way. It’s sort of an emergency.”

The screen door creaked and a woman appeared under the faint globe of light. In its glow, Seth could make out a tiny stick figure in a pale robe, with a long gray braid trailing over one shoulder. “An emergency?” she said. “Well, come on up, then. All of you.”

As the crew climbed rickety, rotting steps to the screened-in porch, the dogs took up a fresh round of barking.

“Killer! Butch!” the tiny woman hollered. “Hush up!” The dogs trotted up the steps to her side and she said “Stay,” pointing one finger at the ground. She braced her feet wide and waited…clutching a shotgun across her middle.

As Seth’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was gratified to see that the old house had a high upstairs addition that jutted out well above the treetops. He could see the glass of a large window winking in the moonlight, but it was facing east. He would need a place with a clear view of the road at night.

He followed Rainey and the boys up several flights of crude steps that twisted and turned toward the porch, while the little old woman held the shotgun like Moses’s staff. Several times Rainey pointed out rotting places in the steps, warning, “Careful. Be careful.”

When he got to the landing at the top, Seth found himself staring at the business end of the shotgun. “Who’s this strappin’ fella?” Gran said with a jerk of the barrel.

“Gran—” Rainey began with a note of exasperation.

“Ma’am,” Seth interrupted. “You can put the gun down. I’m with the Tenikah police.” He stepped around the boys so she could see the reflection of his badge in the weak light.